Machen Chapter 7

            This chapter of Machen’s book “Christianity and Liberalism” is about the physical church, and different perspectives on the church depending on one’s standing between Christianity and liberalism. I have to be honest, I struggled getting through this chapter, because I think I tend to lean more towards the “liberal” Christian that Machen often disagrees with in his book. Up until this chapter, I was able to see his perspective and take it mostly positively. However, this chapter was one that I found myself getting frustrated for what seemed as though he was making assumptions and “lumping” all liberal Christians into one small box. The part of the chapter that I struggled most with was the majority of page 140 and 141.

         

         In this part of the chapter, Machen states 

“If a man believes that salvation from sin comes only through the atoning death of Jesus, then he cannot honestly support his gifts and by his presence a propaganda which is intended to produce an exactly opposite impression… if the liberal party, therefore, really obtains control of the church, evangelical Christians must be prepared to withdrawal no matter what the cost” (141). 

There are a few issues I have with this statement. First, I’m beginning to question what Machen truly means by “liberal” at all. Throughout this book, he has never really explained what a liberal (to him) is, other than using negative condemnation to identify them. Machen also makes it seem as though a liberal person simply cannot be an evangelical Christian. Whether this is what he meant to imply, I’m not sure, but that is how I read it, and I have a problem with that statement.

            I guess because of my frustration with Machen’s assumptions with liberals, I should explain my standing with liberalism. There are a lot of extreme liberals that I wouldn’t say I agree with. One major issue conservative people have with liberalism is the issue of pro-choice. I completely disagree with abortion and would never even consider this as an option if I were to become pregnant, so in this sense, I would say I lean on the conservative side. However, when it comes to issues with church and state, and conservatives often arguing that taxes shouldn’t be a thing, I would say I lean on the liberal side. Taxes are often used towards community resources for people who are living in poverty and can’t afford these resources without the help of their community. Because I am a social work major, my job will be to constantly seek out resources for people in need to utilize. If there were no taxes, unfortunately a lot of people would be out of resources that they need. Some people see those in poverty as lazy individuals who want to mooch off of everyone else for “free money”. While there most definitely are people like this, the majority of those living in poverty are trying their best to make ends meet for themselves. All this being said, because of my major and my future job in advocating for people who are often unable to advocate for themselves, I consider myself more of a “liberal” than “conservative” evangelical Christian.

If I’m being honest, I think all churches need both conservative and liberal views. I feel like this brings perspective from both sides to the spectrum. Machen seems to argue that liberals need to back down and conservatives need to take over the evangelical church. To me, this seems like it goes against what the Bible says about loving each other as brothers and sisters in Christ. I have no issue with having a conversation about beliefs on what is “right” and “wrong”. I would rather be able to have a civil conversation with someone who has disagrees with me, than push them away and never talk because I don’t agree with them. I think God wants us to wrestle with these issues of the church. Unfortunately my take from Chapter seven was that Liberals need to “withdrawal” (141) and conservatives need to take over.